After causing a stir in its Broadway iteration, Oh, Mary! is now ready to do it all over again in the West End

Just over a year ago, on holiday in New York, I watched the comedy Oh, Mary! on Broadway, having previously heard nothing but glowing things. I found it vulgar, chaotic and a celebration of some of humankind’s worst impulses.

In short, I loved it.

At the centre of it all was Cole Escola, both the writer and original star of Oh, Mary!, which reimagines former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln as a spoiled, tyrannical alcoholic, drowning her sorrows over the fact that her husband is too wrapped up in the Civil War to let her pursue her first love of cabaret.

Earlier this year, Cole deservedly won their first Tony for their high-energy leading performance (dressed, naturally, as Broadway icon Bernadette Peters), and as the show has only gone from strength-to-strength, a West End transfer felt inevitable.

Well, as of this week, Mary has now made her dramatic leap across the pond, officially setting up residence at London’s Trafalgar Theatre. But much as I loved Oh, Mary! during its Broadway run, I did have some quiet concerns over exactly how well it would translate for UK audiences, particularly as Mary Todd Lincoln and her story are so less familiar to Brits than our cousins across the Atlantic. Would certain tweaks need to be put in place to help UK audiences understand the story? And how would that affect the flow of what was, by this point, already a well-oiled machine on Broadway?

Then, there was the question of Mary herself.........

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